


This Old House

by iwtv



Category: Black Sails
Genre: M/M, and go back to the Hamilton household, don't ask me how idk it just happens, james and thomas wind up back in London
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2017-12-19
Packaged: 2019-02-16 21:51:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13062876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwtv/pseuds/iwtv
Summary: As they leave the room he imagines all the ripples that form from a single stone throw. Some of them hit rock or sand and end abruptly and harshly, while others travel for a long time, their consequences far and wide and unknowing. He wonders if there are still ripples traveling from what transpired here in this house and if he has yet to feel their impact when they at last crash into the shore.





	This Old House

The air whispers to him here, as though the past still needs to speak to him and remind him of how this house was the stone throw that set off so many ripples.

The first thing he notices missing is the de Hondecoeter painting at the end of the foyer. The large, skillfully painted white cockatoo had always caught his eye when he first stepped into the Hamilton’s large salon. He remembered how Thomas had noticed his habit and had proceeded to give him a tour of all the paintings in the room. At the time he simply thought he and Thomas were becoming friends. Looking back on it however, it was simply one of many ways Thomas had been flirting with him.

James had indulged him every step of the way, scarcely batting an eyelash until even in his naivety back then, he could no longer ignore the way Thomas looked at him…or the way he looked back.

There’s a rectangular-shaped edge of dust where the painting had been.

There were other things missing too, not just the paintings. Most of the tall candelabras had been taken or sold. One of the blue davenports and its matching four chairs were no longer present in the room either. The white marble mantle looks starkly empty without the furniture around. He has a vivid memory of Thomas standing in front of it as he so often had when he needed to think long and hard about something.

Thomas, dressed in his silk stockings and beautiful silver vest, smiling at him.

He moves on to the study. The writing desk is still there, though its top is devoid of everything—no inkpots or quills, no paperweights or books.

He blinks when he sees the floor-to-ceiling bookshelf also empty, save for a few loose sheets of paper here and there. A closer inspection and he finds dust here too. The round globe he and Thomas had used often to study the West Indies was surprisingly still there. He spins it around until he sees the Americas. There, underneath Spanish Florida its surface is more worn than the rest of the globe from the touch of their fingertips.

He stares at it, then looks away to the window. The lush green curtains are faded. He stands in front of the seat below the window sill, remembering Miranda in all her beauty and glory, first smiling and flirting with him, then looking deadly serious during their final conversation in this room.

“Not a single one left. I wonder who the buyer is.”

James turns to the sound of Thomas’s soft voice behind him. He touches the bookshelf. His blue eyes are full to the brim, though of what emotion James isn’t certain.

“Probably a relative, I’d imagine,” said James. “I’m sure I wasn’t the only one jealous of the collection.”

That earns him a wan smile from the blonde.

“No, certainly not.”

Thomas’s face clouds over, then he looks at James again.

“I want to go upstairs.”

They make the climb up the stairs. Thomas remarks it is the most steps he’s taken since leaving England. James tells him of the stairs in the on-again, off-again governor’s mansion in Nassau.

James knows already there is only one room Thomas is interested in up here.

He lets Thomas in first. The paintings are gone here as they were downstairs. The writing desk is bare, as is Miranda’s old beauty table across from the bed. Thomas goes there, idly touching it and the mirror that had yet to be taken and James feels a sharp pang in his chest. He closes his eyes and pushes it all down.

He thinks he smells the faint scent of lavender and rosemary.

When he opens his eyes he’s looking at the bed. A subtle warmth grows in his chest and he resists the urge to lay on it, to feel the sheets and smell them. A silly notion. After ten years he knows they would retain no such lingering pieces. Yet they are not dusty like so much of the furniture has been.

“Someone has been taking care of some things, it seems,” said Thomas as he notices the same freshness to the bed. He rests a palm over one of the tall bedposts, gazing at the bed. Then he turns to James.

“So many secrets in this room,” he said. “I suspect there’s still secrets here.”

“There were many things laid bare,” counters James. “More so than any secrets that were never told.”

“You’re so certain?” asks Thomas. But he has that little smile about his face that tells James he agrees with him.

“Yes,” says James quietly. “I’m certain. This room changed me, but it also changed you.”

“Is that so?”

James stands close behind him, breathing in Thomas’s scent to mix with the ghost of Miranda’s perfume he can still smell.

“You think I’m the only one who had fears to confess in here?” he asks dubiously.

Thomas half turns his head towards him.

“I told you about my relationship with my father in detail, but I don’t recall—”

“You never expected it, to receive another man’s love,” James interrupts softly.

Thomas stays silent, brows knotted. James kisses the back of his neck softly.

“You helped me lose my shame, told me it was all right. _Showed_ me it was all right, right here. But then, one night—and you only spoke it once—you told me that of all the things you’d fantasized or imagined about the two of us, you never expected to receive anything more meaningful in return. I suspected then that there was a tale of heartbreak behind the sentiment, but you didn’t say and I never asked.”

He feels more than hears Thomas’s sigh, sees his shoulders sag. James wraps his arms around Thomas’s waist and Thomas immediately leans into him.

“It’s not something I’ve ever shared with anyone, save for Miranda,” he replies after a long minute. “There was nothing either remarkable or un-remarkable about what happened, except to say I gave all that I had very foolishly to someone who I should have known was not able to reciprocate. He was never like you.”

Thomas turns around and leans against the bedpost, lifting a hand to fidget with a button on James’s shirt.

“He was never going to be capable of seeing me the way you did, despite all your propriety and need to cling to the logic of things. I saw through your cracks before you even knew they were there.”

James studies him hard for a moment.

“You were just as frightened as I was when we started this… _us_ , weren’t you? Though for different reasons.”

Thomas smiles almost shyly.

“Not something I ever would have admitted to you at the time,” he says. “I was too afraid of rejection again, and our stakes were so terribly high,” he adds. His eyes turn sad then. James cups his cheek in his hand.

“We promised each other we would not let this trip make us melancholy, remember?”

Thomas sucks in a breath.

“You’re right. We did.”

James begins unbuttoning Thomas’s shirt, exposing his neck and chest, then pulling it out of his pants.

“What are you doing?”

“We’re going to keep the good memories of this room alive.”

Thomas allows his shirt to be pulled off. James then takes off his own and kisses him, softly at first, then with more vigor. Thomas follows his lead. They eventually rid themselves of their boots and then trousers. It feels odd for the first few minutes to be naked in a room that isn’t their cabin in the Americas, but how many more times had James been naked in this room, and not just physically either. How many times had he allowed himself to submit to a kind of comfort and safety and love he’d never known anywhere else?

“Make love to me,” James whispers to Thomas as they find themselves lying down, their bodies already a tangle of wanting flesh against wanting flesh.

Thomas works James open and pushes himself in, palms pressed against either side of James’s open thighs. He eases himself inside, glancing up to watch James moan or gasp as he works his way all the way inside. James hums deeply, eyes slipping closed. Thomas lets go of his thighs and bends down over him, chest against chest and lips against lips. James kisses him and shudders under him. He glides his palms over Thomas’s body as they kiss. Then his hands push on Thomas’s rump, telling him to move.

Thomas does so. James sighs and allows his muscles to relax bit by bit, until he’s clay ready to be molded.

Thomas feels so good inside him; warm and hard with flashes of hot white heat. James pushes up against him and forces their union to stay tight and deep. All the while Thomas touches him, occasionally stimulating him between his legs so that he has to screw his eyes shut against the pleasure.

He comes gasping for air and his eyes rolling up in his head. Thomas pulls out and then drives in as deep as he can go until James is finished, then he releases himself into his lover’s belly.

They both fall in and out of sleep for the next hour.

When James does keep his eyes open this last time he’s reluctant to move. Thomas’s head rests on his chest and he’s still inside of James, soft. James kisses the top of his head to rouse him. They clean themselves and get dressed.

As they leave the room he imagines all the ripples that form from a single stone throw. Some of them hit rock or sand and end abruptly and harshly, while others travel for a long time, their consequences far and wide and unknowing. He wonders if there are still ripples traveling from what transpired here in this house and if he has yet to feel their impact when they at last crash into the shore. The thought disturbs him as they leave the house and return to their carriage, but then Thomas is whispering sweet nothings—and some dirty ones as well—from inside the carriage, his thigh against James’s and his smile sweet and James realizes not all consequences are bad. In fact, the one sitting next to him, found again after so much toil and suffering, makes the stone throw worth it.


End file.
